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1915 
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ADDRESS 



OF THE 



PRESIDENT OF THE 
UNITED STATES 



AT 



INDIANAPOLIS, IND. 



JANUARY 8, 1915 




WASHINGTON 
1915 



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ADDRESS. 



GovERNou Ralston, Ladies and Gentlemen : Yod have given me 
a most royal welcome, for which I thank you from the bottom of my 
heart. It is rather lonely living in Washington. I have been con- 
fined for two years at hard labor, and even now I feel that I am 
simply out on parole. You notice that one of the most distinguished 
members of the United States Senate is here to see that I go back. 
And yet, with sincere apologies to the Senate and House of Eepre- 
sentatives, I want to say that I draw more inspiration from you than 
I do from them. They, like myself, are only servants of the people 
of the United States. Our sinews consist in your sympathy and 
support, and our renewal comes from contact with you and with the 
strong movements of public opinion in the country. 

That is the reason why I for one would prefer that our thoughts 
should not too often cross the ocean, but should center themselves 
upon the policies and duties of the United States. If we think 
rightly of the United States, when the time comes we shall know how 
this country can serve the world. I Avill borrow a very interesting 
phrase from a distinguished gentleman of my acquaintance and beg 
that you will "keep your moral powder dry." 

But I have come here on Jackson Day. If there are Republicans 
present, I hope they will feel the compellmg influences of such a 
day. There was nothing mild about Andrew Jackson; that is the 
reason I spoke of the " compelling influences " of the day. Andrew 
Jackson was a forthright man who believed everything he did 
believe in fighting earnest. And really, ladies and gentlemen, in 
public life that is the only sort of man worth thinking about for a 
moment. If I was not ready to fight for everything I believe in, I 
would think it my duty to go back and take a back seat. I like, 
therefore, to breathe the air of Jackson Day. I like to be reminded 
of the old militant hosts of Democracy which I believe have come 
to life again in our time. The United States had almost forgotten 
that it must keep its fighting ardor in behalf of mankind when 
Andrew Jackson became President; and }ou will notice that when- 
ever the United States forgets its ardor for mankind it is necessary 

that a Democrat should be elected President. 
77508— 1 .J (3) 



The trouble with the Kepublican party is that it has not had a 
new idea for thirty years. I am not speaking as a politician; I am 
speaking as an historian. I have looked for new ideas in the 
records and I have not fomid any proceeding from the Republican 
ranks. They have had leaders from time to time who suggested 
new ideas, but they never did anything to carry them out. I sup- 
pose there was no harm in their talking, provided they could not 
do anything. Therefore, when it was necessary to say that we had 
talked about things long enough which it was necessary to do, and 
the time had come to do them, it was indispensable that a Democrat 
should be elected President. 

I would not speak with disrespect of the Republican party. I 
always speak with great respect of the past. The past was neces- 
sary to the present, and was a sure prediction of the future. The 
Republican party is still a covert and refuge for those who are 
afraid, for those who want to consult their grandfathers about 
everything. You will notice that most of the advice taken by the 
Republican party is taken from gentlemen old enough to be grand- 
fathers, and that when they claim that a reaction has taken place, 
they react to the reelection of the oldest members of their party. 
They will not trust the youngsters. They are afraid the youngsters 
may have something up their sleeve. 

You will see, therefore, that I have come to you in the spirit of 
Jackson Day. I got very tired staying in Washington and saying 
sweet things. I wanted to come out and get contact with you once 
more and say what I really thought. 

My friends, what I particularly want you to observe is this, that 
politics in this country does not depend any longer upon the regular 
members of either party. There are not enough regular Republicans 
in this country to take and hold national power; and I must imme- 
diately add there are not enough regular Democrats in this country 
to do it, either. This country is guided and its policy is determined 
by the independent voter; and I have come to ask you how we can 
best prove to the independent voter that the instrument he needs 
is the Democratic party, and that it would be hopeless for him to 
attempt to use the Republican party. I do not have to prove it; 
1 admit it. 

What seems to me perfectly evident is this: That if you made a 
rough reckoning, you would have to admit that only about one-third 
of the Republican party is progressive; and you would also have to 
admit that about two-thirds of the Democratic party is progressive. 
Therefore, the independent progressive voter finds a great deal more 
company in the Democratic ranks than in the Republican ranks. 
I say a great deal more, because there are Democrats who are sitting 
on the breeching strap : there are Democrats who are holding back ; 



there are Democrats who are nervous. I dare say they were born 
with that temperament. And I respect the conservative temper. I 
claim to be an animated conservative myself, because being a con- 
servative I understand to mean being a man not only who preserves 
what is best in the Nation but who sees that in order to preserve it 
you dare not stand still but must move forward. The virtue of 
America is not statical; it is dynamic. All the forces of America 
are forces in action or else they are forces of inertia. 

What I want to point out to you — and I believe that this is what 
the whole country is beginning to perceive — is this, that there is a 
larger body of men in the regular ranks of the Democratic party 
who believe in the progressive policies of our day and mean to see 
them carried forward and perpetuated than there is in the ranks of 
the Eepublican party. How can it be otherwise, gentlemen? The 
Democratic party, and only the Democratic party, has carried out 
the policies which the progressive people of this country have 
desired. There is not a single great act of this present great Con- 
gress which has not been carried out in obedience to the public opin- 
ion of America; and the public opinion of America is not going to 
permit any body of men to go backward with regard to these great 
matters. 

Let me instance a single thing: I want to ask the business men 
here present if this is not the first January in their recollection that 
did not bring a money stringency for the time being, because of the 
necessity of paying out great sums of money by w^ay of dividends 
and the other settlements which come at the first of the year ? I have 
asked the bankers if that happened this year, and they say, " No ; it 
did not happen ; it could not happen under the Federal Reserve Act." 
We have emancipated the credits of this country; and is there any- 
body here who will doubt that the other policies that have given 
guaranty to this country that there will be free competition are poli- 
cies which this country will never allow to be reversed ? I have taken 
a long time, ladies and gentlemen, to select the Federal Trade Com- 
mission, because I wanted to choose men and be sure that I had chosen 
men who would be really serviceable to the business men of this coun- 
try, great as well as small, the rank and the file. These things have 
been done and will never be undone. They were talked about and 
talked about with futility until a Democratic Congress attempted and 
achieved them. 

But the Democratic party is not to suppose that it is done with 
the business. The Democratic party is still on trial. The Democratic 
party still has to prove to the independent voters of the country not 
only that it believes in th^se things, but that it will continue to work 
along these lines and that it will not allow any enemy of these 
things to break its ranks. This country is not going to use any 



' 6 

party that can not do continuous and consistent teamwork. If 
any group of men should dare to break the solidarity of the Demo- 
cratic team for any purpose or from any motive, theirs will be a 
most unenviable notoriety and a responsibility which will bring 
deep bitterness to them. The only party that is serviceable to a 
nation is a party that can hold absolutely together and march with 
the discipline and with the zest of a conquering host. 

I am not saying these things because I doubt that the Democratic 
party will be able to do this, but because I believe that as leader 
for the time being of that party I can promise the country that it 
will do these things. I know my colleagues at Washington ; I know 
their spirit and their purpose; and I know that they have the same 
emotion, the same high emotion of public service, that I hope I have. 

I want at this juncture to pay my tribute of respect and of 
affectionate admiration for the two great Democratic Senators from 
the State of Indiana. I have never had to lie awake nights won- 
dering what they were going to do. And the country is not going 
to trouble itself, ladies and gentlemen, to lie awake nights and 
wonder what men are going to do. If they have to do that, they 
will choose other men. Teamwork all the time is what they are 
going to demand of us, and that is our individual as well as our^ 
collective responsibility. That is what Jackson stands for. If a 
man will not play with the team, then he does not belong to the team. • 
You see, I have spent a large part of my life in college and I know 
what a team means Avhen I see it ; and I know what the captain of a 
team must have if he is going to win. So it is no idle figure of 
speech with me. 

Now, what is their duty ? You say, " Hasn't this Congress carried 
out a great program ? " Yes, it has carried out a great program. It 
has had the most remarkable record that any Congress since the Civil 
War has had ; and I say since the Civil War because I have not had 
time to think about those before the Civil War. But we are living at an 
extraordinary moment. The world has never been in the condition 
that it is in now, my friends. Half the world is on fire. Only America 
among the great powers of the world is free to govern her own life ; 
and all the world is looking to America to serve its economic need. 
And while this is happening what is going on ? 

Do you know, gentlemen, that the ocean freight rates have gone up 
in some instances to ten times their ordinary figure? and that the 
farmers of the United States, those who raise grain and those who 
raise cotton — these things that are absolutely necessary to the world 
as well as to ourselves — can not get their due profit out of the great, 
prices that they are willing to pay for these things on the other side 
of the sea. because practically the whole profit is eaten up by the 



extortionate charges for ocean carriage? In the midst of this the 
Democrats propose a temporary measure of relief in a shipping bill. 
The merchants and the farmers of this comitry must have ships to 
carry their goods. Just at the present moment there is no other way 
of getting them than through the instrumentality that is suggested 
in the shipping bill. I hear it said in Washington on all hands that 
the Republicans in the United States Senate mean to talk enough to 
make the passage of that bill impossible. These self-styled friends 
of business, these men who say the Democratic party does not know 
what to do for business, are saying that the Democrats shall do 
nothing for business. I challenge them to show their right to stand 
in the way of the release of American products to the rest of the 
world ! AVho commissioned them — a minority, a lessening minority ? 
(For they will be in a greater minority' in the next Senate than in 
this.) You laiow it is the peculiarity of that great body that it 
has rules of procedure which make it possible for a minority to defy 
the Nation ; and these gentlemen are now seeking to defy the Nation 
and prevent the release of American products to the suffering world 
which needs them more than it ever needed them before. Their cre- 
dentials as friends of business and friends of America will be badly 
discredited if they succeed. If I were speaking from a selfish, parti- 
san point of view, I could wish nothing better than that they should 
show their true colors as partisans and succeed. But I am not quite 
so malevolent as that. Some of them are misguided; some of them 
are blind ; most of them are ignorant. I would rather pray for them 
than abuse them. The great voice of America ought to make them 
understand what they are said to be attempting now really means. 
I have to say " are said to be attempting." because they do not come 
and tell me that the}^ are attempting them. I do not know why. I 
would express my opinion of them in parliamentary language, but 
I would express it. I hope, no less plainly because couched in the 
terms of courtesy. This country is Inirsting its jacket, and they are 
seeing to it that the jacket is not only kept tight but is riveted with 
steel. 

The Democratic party does know how to serve business in this 
country, and its future program is a program of ser^^ce. We have 
cleared the decks. We have laid the lines now upon which business 
that was to do the coimtry harm shall be stopped and an eco- 
nomic control which was intolerable shall be broken up. We have 
emancipated America, but America must do something with her 
freedom. There are great bills pending in the United States Senate 
just now that have been passed by the House of Representatives, 
which are intended as constructive measures in behalf of business — 
one great measure which will make available the enormous water 



8 

powers of this country for the industry of it ; another bill which will 
unlock the resources of the public domain which the Republicans, 
desiring to save, locked up so that nobody could use them. 

The reason I say the Republicans have not had a new idea in 
thirty years is that they have not known how to do anything except 
sit on the lid. If you can release the steam so that it will drive 
great industries, it is not necessary to sit on the lid. What we are 
trying to do in the great conservation bill is to carry out for the first 
time in the history of the United States a system by which the great 
resources of this country can be used instead of being set aside so 
that no man can get at them. I shall watch with a great deal of 
interest what the self-styled friends of business try to do to those 
bills. Do not misunderstand me. There are some men on that side 
of the Chamber who understand the value of these things and are 
standing valiantly by them, but they are a small minority. The 
majority that is standing by them is on our side of the Chamber, and 
they are the friends of America. 

But there are other things which we have to do. Sometimes when 
I look abroad, my friends, and see the great mass of struggling 
humanity on this continent, it goes very much to my heart to see 
how many men are at a disadvantage and are without guides and 
helpers. Don't you think it would be a pretty good idea for the 
Democratic party to undertake a systematic method of helping the 
workingmen of America? There is one very simple way in which 
they can help the workingmen. If you were simply to establish a 
great Federal employment bureau, it would do a vast deal. By the 
Federal agencies which spread over this country men could be 
directed to those parts of the country, to those undertakings, to those 
tasks where they could find profitable employment. The labor of 
this country needs to be guided from opportunity to opportunity. 
We proved it the other day. We were told that in two States of 
the Union 30,000 men were needed to gather the crops. We sug- 
gested in a Cabinet meeting that the Department of I/abor should 
have printed information about this in such form that it could be 
posted up in the post offices all over the United States, and that the 
Department of Labor should get in touch with the labor departments 
of the States, so that notice could go out from them, and their co- 
operation obtained. What was the result? Those 30,000 men were 
found and were sent to the places where they got profitable em- 
ployment. I do not know any one thing that has happened in my 
administration that made me feel happier than that — that the job 
and the man had been brought together. It will not cost a great 
deal of money and it will do a great deal of service if the United 
States were to undertake to do such things systematically and all 



the year round ; and I for my part hope that it will do that. If I 
were writing an additional plank for a Democratic platform, I would 
put that in. 

There is another thing that needs very much to be done. I am 
not one of those who doubt either the industry or the learning or 
the integrity of the courts of the United States, but I do know 
that they have a very antiquated way of doing business. I do know 
that the United States in its judicial procedure is many decades 
behind every other civilized Government in the world, and I say that 
it is an immediate and an imperative call upon us to rectify that, 
because the speediness of justice, the inexpensiveness of justice, the 
ready access to justice, is the greater part of justice itself. If you 
have to be rich to get justice, because of the cost of the very process 
itself, then there is no justice at all. So I say this is another direc- 
tion in which we ought to be very quick to see the signs of the times 
and to help those who need to be helped. 

Then there is something else. The Democrats have heard the 
Republicans talking about the scientific way in which to handle a 
tariff, though the Republicans have never given any exhibition of 
a knowledge of how to handle it scientifically. If it is scientific 
to put additional profits into the hands of those who are already 
getting the greater part of the profits, then they have been exceed- 
ingly scientific. It has been the science of selfishness ; it has been the 
science of privilege. That kind of science I do not care to know 
anything about except enough to stop it. But if by scientific treat- 
ment of the tariff they mean adjustment to the actual tiade con- 
ditions of America and the world, then I am with them; and I 
want to call their attention — for though they voted for it they ap- 
parently have not noticed it — to the fact that the bill which creates 
the new Trade Conmiission does that very thing. We were at 
pains to see that it was put in there. That commission is authorized 
and empowered to inquire into and report to Congress not only 
upon all the conditions of trade in this country, but upon the con- 
ditions of trade, the cost of manufacture, the cost of transporta- 
tion — all the things that enter into the question of the tariff — in 
foreign countries and into all those questions of foreign combina- 
tions which affect international trade between Europe and the 
United States. It has the full powers which will guide Congress 
in the scientific treatment of questions of international trade. Being 
by profession a schoolmaster, I am glad to point that out to the class 
of uninstructed Republicans, though I have not ahvays taught in 
the primary grade. 

At every turn the things that the progressive Republicans have 
proposed that wxre practicable, the Democrats either have done or 
are immediately proposing to do. If that is not our bill of particu- 



10 

tars to satisfy the independent voters of the country, I would like 
to have one produced. There are things that the Progressive pro- 
gram contained which we, being constitutional lawyers, happened 
to know can not be done by the Congress of the United States. That 
is a detail which they seem to have overlooked. But so far as they 
can be done by State legislatures, I, for one, speaking for one Demo- 
crat, am heartily in favor of their being done. Because Democrats 
do not congregate merely in Washington. They congregate also in 
the State capitols, and they congregate there in very influential 
numbers and with very influential organizations. 

Just before I came away from Washington I was going over some 
of the figures of the last elections, the elections of November last. 
The official returns have not all come in yet. I do not know why 
they are so slow in getting to us, but so far as they have come in 
they have given me this useful information, that taking the States 
where Senators were elected, and where Senators were not elected 
taking the election of Governors, and where Governors were not 
elected taking the returns for the State legislatures or for the Con- 
gressional delegates, the Democrats, reckoning State by State, 
would, if it had been a presidential year, have had a majority of 
about eighty in the Electoral College. Fortunately or unfortunately, 
this is not a presidential year ; but the thing is significant to me for 
this reason. A great many people have been speaking of the Dem- 
ocratic party as a minority party. Well, if it is, it is not so much 
of a minority party as the Republican, and as between the minor- 
ities I think we can claim to belong to the larger minority. The 
moral of that is merely what I have already been pointing out to 
you, that neither party in its regular membership has a majority. 
I do not want to make the independent voter too proud of himself, 
but I have got to admit that he is our boss ; and I am bound to admit 
that the things that he wants are, so far as I have seen them men- 
tioned, things that I want. 

I am not an independent voter, but I hope I can claim to be an 
independent person, and I want to say this distinctly: I do not love 
any party any longer than it continues to serve the immediate and 
pressing needs of America. I have been bred in the Democratic 
party ; I love the Democratic party ; but I love America a great deal 
More than I love the Democratic party; and when the Democratic 
party thinks that it is an end in itself, then I rise up and dissent. 
It is a means to an end, and its power depends, and ought to depend^ 
upon its showing that it knows what America needs and is ready to 
give it Avhat it needs. That is the reason I say to the independent 
voter you have got us in the palm of your hand. I do not happen to 
be one of your number but I recognize your supremacy, because I 



11 

read the election returns; and I have this ambition, my Democratic 
friends — I can avow it on Jackson day — I want to make every inde- 
pendent voter in this country a Democrat. It is a little cold and 
lonely out where he is, because, though he holds the balance of power, 
he is not the majority, and I want him to come in where it is warm. 
I want him to come in where there is a lot of good society, good 
companionship, Avhere there are great emotions. That is what I miss 
in the Republican party; they do not seem to have any great emo- 
tions. They seem to think a lot of things, old things. l)ut they do not 
seem to have any enthusiasm about an_vthing. 

There is one thing I have got a great enthusiasm about, I 
might almost say a reckless enthusiasm, and that is human liberty. 
The Governor has just now spoken about watchful waiting in Mexico. 
T want to sa}^ a word about Mexico, or not so much about Mexico as 
about our attitude towards Mexico. I hold it as a fundamental prin- 
ciple, and so do you, that every people has the right to determine 
its own form of government ; and until this recent revolution in Mex- 
ico, until the end of the Diaz reign, eighty per cent, of the people 
of Mexico never had a " look in " in determining who should be their 
governors or what their government should be. Now, I am for the 
eighty per cent ! It is none of my business, and it is none of your 
business, how long they take in determining it. It is none of my busi- 
ness, and it is none of yours, how they go about the business. The 
country is theirs. The Government is theirs. The libert}^, if they 
can get it, and Godspeed them in getting it, is theirs. And so 
far as my influence goes while I am President nobody shall inter- 
fere with them. 

That is what I mean by a great emotion, the great emotion of 
sympathy. Do you suppose that the American people are ever going 
to count a small amount of material benefit and advantage to people 
doing business in Mexico against the liberties and the permanent hap- 
piness of the Mexican people ? Have not European nations taken 
as long as they wanted and spilt as much blood as they pleased in 
settling their affairs, and shall we deny that to Mexico because she 
is weak? No, I say! I am proud to belong to a strong nation that 
says, " This country which we could crush shall have just as much 
freedom in her own affairs as we have." If I am strong, I am 
ashamed to bully the weak. In proportion to my strength is my 
pride in withholding that strength from the oppression of another 
people. And I know when I speak these things, not merely fronr 
the generous response with which they have just met from you, but 
from my long-time knowledge of the American people, that that is 
the sentiment of this great people. With all due respect to editors 
of great newspapers, I have to say to them that I seldom take my 
opinion of the American people from their editorials. When some 



12 

great dailies not very far from where I am temporarily residing 
thundered with rising scorn at watchful waiting, my confidence was 
not for a moment shaken. I knew what were the temper and prin- 
ciples of the American people. If I did not at least think I knew, 
I would emigrate, because I would not be satisfied to stay where I 
am. There may come a time when the American people will have to 
judge whether I know what I am talking about or not, but at least 
for two years more I am free to think that I do, with a great comfort 
in immunity in the time being. 

It is, by the way, a very comforting thought that the next Con- 
gress of the United States is going to be very safely Democratic and 
that, therefore, we can all together feel as much confidence as Jack- 
son did that we know what we are about. You know Jackson used 
to think that everybody who disagreed with him was an enemy of 
the country. I have never got quite that far in my thought, but I 
have ventured to think that they did not know what they were 
talking about, knowing that my fellow Democrats expected me to 
live up to the full stature of Jacksonian Democracy. 

I feel, my friends, in a very confident mood to-day. I feel con- 
fident that we do know the spirit of the American people, that we 
do know the program of betterment which it will be necessary for 
us to undertake, that we do have a very reasonable confidence in 
the support of the American people. I have been talking with 
business men recently about the present state of mind of American 
business. There is nothing the matter with American business 
except a state of mind. I understand that your chamber of com- 
merce here in Indianapolis is working now upon the motto " If 
you are going to buy it, buy it now." That is a perfectly safe maxim 
to act on. It is just as safe to buy it now as it ever will be, and 
if you start the buying there will be no end to it, and you will be 
a seller as well as a buyer. I am just as sure of that as I can be, 
because I have taken counsel with the men who know. I never was 
in business and, therefore, I have none of the prejudices of business. 
I have looked on and tried to see what the interests of the country 
were in business; I have taken counsel with men who did know, and 
their counsel is uniform, that all that is needed in America now is 
to believe in the future; and I can assure you as one of those who 
speak for the Democratic Party that it is perfectly safe to believe 
in the future. We are so much the friends of business that we were 
for a little time the enemies of those who were trying to control 
business. I say " for a little time " because we are now reconciled 
to them. They have graciously admitted that we had a right to 
do what we did do, and they have very handsomely said that they 
were going to play the game. 



13 

I believe — I always have believed — that American business men 
were absolutely sound at heart, but men immersed in business do 
a lot of things that opportunity offers which in other circumstances 
they would not do; and I have thought all along that all that was 
necessary to do was to call their attention sharply to the kind of 
reforms in business which Avere needed and that they would acquiesce. 
Why, I believe they have heartily acquiesced. There is all the more 
reason, therefore, that, great and small, we should be confident in 
the future. 

And what a future it is, my friends! Look abroad upon the 
troubled world ! Only America at peace ! Among all the great 
powers of the world only America saving her power for her own 
people ! Only America using her great character and her great 
strength in the interests of peace and of prosperity ! Do you not 
think it likely that the world will some time turn to America and 
say, " You Avere right and we were wrong. You kept your head 
when we lost ours. You tried to keep the scale from tipping, and 
we threw the whole weight of arms in one side of the scale. Now, 
in your self-possession, in your coolness, in your strength, may we 
not turn to you for counsel and for assistance?" Think of the deep- 
wrought destruction of economic resources, of life, and of hope that 
is taking place in some parts of the world, and think of the reservoir 
of hope, the reservoir of energy, the reservoir of sustenance that 
there is in this great land of plenty ! May we not look forward to 
the time when we shall be called blessed among the nations, because 
we succored the nations of the world in their time of distress and of 
dismay ? I for one pray God that that solemn hour may come, and 
I know the solidity of character and I know the exaltation of hope, 
I loiow the big principle with which the American people will re- 
spond to the call of the world for this service. I thank God that 
those who believe in America, who try to serve her people, are likely 
to be also what America herself from the first hoped and meant to 
be — the servant of mankind. 



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